Buffalo Nickel

1913–1938

Designed by sculptor James Earle Fraser, the Buffalo Nickel (also called the Indian Head Nickel) paired a composite Native American portrait — Fraser said he combined features from several individual sitters rather than depicting one specific person — with an American bison on the reverse, modeled on a real animal named Black Diamond at the New York Zoological Park. The original 1913 design showed the bison standing on a raised mound, which wore down quickly in circulation and was flattened later that same year — creating two distinct 1913 varieties before the design settled for the rest of the series.